Witco-esque Foam Mask

We had a crafting class where we brought a bunch of our local Tiki Tribe over to the house to make some masks out of normal construction foam:

The example mask didn’t really match our style, so we tried to carve out something from the Witco and Shag catalogs. So I downloaded some images on the internet and printed them to scale:

The class was supposed to show you how to carve the masks with hand tools, but that was a pain in the ass; so I realized that there was a bandsaw in the garage I could use to cut out the shape:

Once the shape was cut out, we transferred the carving pattern to the foam using a knife to cut through the paper into the foam, or something pointy to poke a hole into the foam every half-inch, or so. Then we traced the pattern in the foam with a marker.

Then we were supposed to carve out the detail with hand tools, but I realized “Hey! I have a palm router in the garage…”, and I routed out the pattern by hand.

I used a wire brush to simulate some wood grain along the carving and the sprayed some primer on it. We were warned not to use spray paint because it can melt the foam, but that’s all I had, so I gave it a shot. It didn’t melt the foam at all, but other combinations of paint and primer did melt the foam later on.

Then I sprayed it with some brown paint we had on hand.

The paint was a little thin in places, so I bought some more brown spray paint and put three or four coats on to make sure it didn’t wear through. The final result wouldn’t fool anyone, but it looks great compared to the amount of effort I put into it. and was cheap.

Funny story: The instructor for the class is also the assistant curator for the Kirkland museum and he didn’t think the foam would carve well with a router. He was creating a Frank Lloyd Wright display and wanted to create a a masonry-looking corner in a temporary exhibit and was dreading the process. Once he saw our masks, he created the masonry walls with foam and a router which look great in the museum after he painted them.